The modern biotechnology industry is faced with a number of problems especially concerning the processing of complex biological solutions which ordinarily include proteins, nucleic acid molecules and complex sugars and which are contaminated with unwanted biological materials. Contaminants include microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses or biomolecules derived from microorganisms or the processing procedure. The demand is, therefore, for a high purity, scalable separation, which can be confidently used both in product development and production, which in one step will both purify macromolecules and separate these biological contaminants.
Viruses are some of the smallest non-cellular organisms known. These simple parasites are composed of nucleic acid and a protein coat. Viruses are typically very small and range in size from 1.5×10−8m to 5.0×10−5m. Viruses depend on the host cells that they infect to reproduce by inserting their genetic material into the host. Often literally taking over the host's function. An infected cell produces more viral protein and genetic material, often instead of its usual products. Some viruses may remain dormant inside host cells. However, when a dormant virus is stimulated, it can enter the lytic phase where new viruses are formed. Self-assemble occurs and burst out of the host cell results in killing the cell and releasing new viruses to infect other cells. Viruses cause a number of diseases in humans including smallpox, the common cold, chicken pox, influenza, shingles, herpes, polio, rabies. Ebola, hanta fever, and AIDS. Some types of cancer have been linked to viruses.
Pyrogens are agents which induce fever. Bacteria are a common source for the production of endotoxins which are pyrogenic agents. Furthermore, another detrimental effect of endotoxins is their known adjuvant effect which could potentially intensify immune responses against therapeutic drugs. The endotoxin limit set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines for most pharmaceutical products is for a single dose 0.5 ng endotoxin per kilogram body weight or 25 ng endotoxin/dose for a 50 kg adult. Due to their size and charge heterogeneity, separation of endotoxins from proteins in solution can often be difficult. Endotoxin inactivation by chemical methods are unsuitable because they are stable under extremes of temperature and pH which would destroy the proteins. Furthermore, due to their amphipathic nature, endotoxins tend to adhere to proteins in a fashion similar to detergents. In such cases, endotoxin activity often clusters with the protein when chromatographic procedures such as ion exchange chromatography or gel filtration are employed.
Presently, the purification of biomolecules is sometimes a long and cumbersome process especially when purifying blood proteins. The process is made all the more complex by the additional step of ensuring the product is “bug” free. The costs associated with this task is large and further escalates the purification costs in total. The Gradiflow technology rapidly purifies target proteins with high yield. For example, a proteins like fibrinogen (a clotting protein) can be separated in three hours using the Gradiflow while the present industrial separation is 3 days. Certain monoclonal antibodies can be purified in 35 minutes compared to present industrial methods which take 35 hours.
The membrane configuration in the Gradiflow enables the system to be configured so that the purification procedure can also include the separation of bacteria viruses and vectors. It has now been found by the present inventors that appropriate membranes can be used and the cartridge housing the membrane configured to include separate chambers for the isolated bacteria and viruses.
The Gradiflow Technology
Gradiflow is a unique preparative electrophoresis technology for macromolecule separation which utilises tangential flow across a polyacrylamide membrane when a charge is applied across the membrane (AU 601040). The general design of the Gradiflow system facilitates the purification of proteins and other macromolecules under near native conditions. This results in higher yields and excellent recovery.
In essence the Gradiflow technology is bundled into a cartridge comprising of three membranes housed in a system of specially engineered grids and gaskets which allow separation of macromolecules by charge and/or molecular weight. The system can also concentrate and desalt/dialyse at the same time. The multimodal nature of the system allows this technology to be used in a number of other areas especially in the production of biological components for medical use. The structure of the membranes may be configured so that bacteria and viruses can be separated at the point of separation—a task which is not currently available in the biotechnology industry and adds to the cost of production through time delays and also because of the complexity of the task.